“Magic really does exist in this world...”
He was so happy, he tried several more times after that...
“Water, spill forth!”
“Water, spill forth!”
“Water, spill forth!”
A beat of silence and then he muttered out loud.
“Fake Michael said the image was important. What if I try this instead...”
In his mind, he visualized the same image of water rushing out of his right palm.
“Water.”
Just like all his previous attempts, a ball of water only enough to fill a cup spilled out and hit the ground.
“Wo-tah.”
This time he tried saying it with an accent, but the result was the same—a cup’s worth that plopped to the ground. On his next attempt, Ryo decided to say it in his mind instead of out loud.
Water.
No change. Still only enough to fill a cup plunging straightaway to the ground.
“Huh. Guess I don’t have to actually say it out loud. Shoot, I’ve always wanted to use a cool-sounding spell though...”
No matter how old they got, men never outgrew Main Character Syndrome.
“Ahhh, I should have done this in the bathtub... What a waste of water...”
He rushed to the bathroom and continued his water magic practice over the tub.
“I still haven’t been able to produce anything more than a cupful each time. I’d love to get a stronger, continuous flow going, enough to fill up the tub.”
The bathtub was an impressive affair made out of stone. It would fit perfectly in a high-class hot spring inn with private open-air baths in each suite. He knew filling it up with the cupfuls of water he’d been producing posed a real challenge.
“A strong, continuous flow of water, huh? Like water flowing out of a tap. No, wait, wait, wait. This is a tub. So I don’t just need regular water but hot water. All right, let’s try producing hot water.”
Ryo imagined hot water. In order to solidify his vision, he chanted the words out loud.
“Hot water.”
When he did, another cupful of water dropped into the tub. Yes, water and not hot water.
“What the heck? Maybe I need to make the image clearer?”
This time, he imagined the entire tub filled with hot water while chanting.
“Hot water.”
The result was the same—another cupful of lukewarm water splashed into the tub.
“Hmmm...I think I’ll give up on hot water for today. This Forest of Rondo is pretty hot, so bathing in regular water sounds nice too.”
Ryo didn’t mind hard work, but he also knew when to give up. It was only natural, since he couldn’t expect to be good at it right off the bat. Decision made, he pulled himself together.
“Faucet.”
Water flowed out steadily from his right hand as if it were a faucet.
“Yes, yes, very good. That’s the way.”
He was mature enough to admit his failure with producing hot water. When considering how much regular water he created on his first day, he had to count this as some sort of success. At the very least, he could now make enough water for drinking and bathing.
Of the problems people faced every day in their lives, a big one remained for him...
“I need fire, don’t I...”
For cooking, for staying warm, and for the day he eventually leveled up from lukewarm baths to hot baths. One way or another, he needed to get his hands on fire.
This problem wouldn’t exist if he could use fire magic but...that was pretty much asking for the moon in this world. After all, Ryo could only use water for the rest of his life.
“The question is, how do I go about getting fire...”
Didn’t humanity first “discover” fire when lightning struck a tree and set it ablaze? He wasn’t sure if that was actually true though... Or maybe it was Prometheus who gave fire to mankind...? Except he didn’t like either of those options right now.
“A piece of flint would be easiest.”
He did another cursory inspection of the house and found no flint. Striking his knife’s steel against a fly should create sparks. Ryo was sure he would eventually find what he wanted if he searched the nearby cliffs or riverbanks but that was for after he adapted more to his life here.
Fake Michael had told him monsters wouldn’t come within a hundred-meter radius of his house, which meant there were probably monsters outside that range. He would step outside the barrier once he made the necessary preparations. “Barrier” was what he decided to call it until he knew the real term. He couldn’t cross it anyway until his water magic was strong enough to fight with. Otherwise, he didn’t stand a chance.
At any rate, Ryo needed to find another way to obtain fire. Without flint, the only other way he could create fire was by rubbing a hard stick against a soft stick to use the friction to make heat.
“I really can’t picture myself succeeding...”
When the bathtub was full, Ryo headed outside the house for a brief period. He gathered kindling and firewood while keeping a wary eye on the area outside the barrier. He also picked up anything else that would make the tinder he’d need to get the fire started. Dried grass would work as long as he crushed it up some... Probably, anyway.
Just then, he was lucky enough to come across a tree that wasn’t quite a hemp palm tree, but it at least fell in the palm tree category. Its black bark would come in handy.
“Yup, I think I remember seeing this in a video.”
That was what Ryo’s survival knowledge amounted to.
Fake Michael included a traditional wood-burning stove in the house. Even taking into account all the firewood it required, he would still have plenty left over to use. For the sticks he’d need to create friction, a branch from a pine tree and a branch from an evergreen oak would be best.
“Let’s do this!”
Not even a puff of smoke. Ryo kept trying. One hour passed...then two...before he finally gave up.
“I guess I should check what kind of food I have.”
Sometimes, you just need to be practical and prioritize. He shouldn’t expect things to go well right off the bat.
Having thrown in the towel on lighting a fire, Ryo headed toward the silo outside the house. It looked like a normal hut. When he opened the door, he found it nice and cold inside.
“Is this water magic? Are the walls made of ice? Is this what they call an ice house?”
This must be Fake Michael’s handiwork too. In the future, Ryo could use this kind of magic too...maybe.
On his second day in Phi, Ryo woke up with the sunrise. He’d already thought of an idea on how to acquire fire, but in order to make it a reality he needed to better understand how to use his water magic.
Fake Michael had told him the laws of physics on Earth and Phi, as well as their molecular compositions, were almost identical. It was also true that while magic existed on Phi, it didn’t on Earth—although, apparently, Earth used to be a world of magic too.
On Earth, water’s molecular structure was H₂O. So, in all likelihood, it was the same on Phi.
Ryo brought the bucket from the bathroom.
“Faucet.”
He filled it up with about ten centimeters of water, which he planned to freeze. In his mind, he focused on creating a distinct image of ice.
“Freeze!”
But it didn’t go well.
“Hmmm, this is really hard. I have to keep going though because I need to be able to make ice... Pretty sure I can use it as a weapon. I’d love to use my magic to create an ice spear or something.”
Maybe it wasn’t enough to just condense the water. It might help if he visualized the heat leaving the liquid at the same time as it became a solid. So, he went through a trial-and-error process as he tested out various techniques.
After countless challenging attempts, a thin film of ice finally appeared on the water’s surface. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t freeze any further than that. Then, he decided to concentrate on the H₂O molecules themselves.
Two mechanics exist by which ice stores heat: the first involves particle vibrations while in the second, enthalpy, heat is stored by changing the strength of the bonds between water molecules.
The foundation of magic is imagination and a person’s imagination is limitless. One can imagine everything from the tiniest, microscopic grain in the known world to the vast, infinite reaches of space. Human imagination is all-powerful in the truest sense of the word.
People can’t see atoms and molecules with the naked eye, but...as long as they possess the necessary knowledge, they can imagine it!
All Ryo needed to do was bond H₂O molecules together. Take the O from this molecule and connect it to the H on its neighbor. He focused on visualizing the phenomenon known as hydrogen bonding.
Ice comes in many forms. Aside from the common hexagonal crystal structure, it also existed as a cubic crystal in the natural world. Moreover, fifteen other types of ice have been discovered in high-pressure environments—from beautiful lattices of hydrogen bonds filled with gaps to ice that appears crushed.
Many aspects of ice and water still remain a mystery to scientists on Earth. These substances are deeply intertwined in human life because mankind can’t live without them—yet even these ubiquitous phenomena are full of unsolved puzzles.
Ryo couldn’t help but think these thoughts now that he was a water magician. Even while he considered this, however, he needed to work on creating ice, so he focused on creating a neat lattice of water molecules joined together by hydrogen bonding. Simultaneously, he visualized stopping the molecular vibrations.
A substance’s temperature is proportional to the amplitude of the vibrations in its molecular structure. In other words, temperature is an index of the intensity of molecular vibration. The more intense the vibrations, the higher the temperature rises in the substance. Conversely, the less intense the vibrations, the more the temperature decreases. So when the atomic and molecular vibrations reach almost zero, the temperature reaches what is known as absolute zero at -273.15 degrees Celsius. That is why, in principle, there’s no such thing as a temperature lower than absolute zero.
In his mind, the vibrations of water molecules continued to lessen. The water in the bucket obeyed the image and...became wholly ice.
“All right, success! Success, yes, but...I can’t get it out of the bucket.”